View Single Post
  #6  
Old 29-04-2013, 03:52 PM
White Rabbit's Avatar
White Rabbit
Space Cadet

White Rabbit is offline
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Sydney
Posts: 1,411
I use to have one of these mounts. You will need the following.

Ascom 6, down load here http://ascom-standards.org/
EQMod, down load here http://sourceforge.net/projects/eq-mod/files/ you need eq EQASCOM file.
Serial to USB converter or EQ direct cable and the QSI Driver

Plug the serial cable into the pc and the bottom of the hand controller. You dont need to enter any details into the hand controller as it will not be controlling the mount EQ mod will. You will need to put the hand controller into PC direct mode though so it knows to relay commands through to the mount from the PC. Check the manual for PC direct mode. I think it's in utilities menu of the hand controller.


Once you have installed all of the above open PHD and and click on the camera tab. It will bring up the list of cameras select yours and the click ok.
Then click on the image of telescope and the ascom telescope mount selector should open scroll down until you see Eqmod select it and then select properties in the mount selector. Entre all your details GPS positions ect and click ok and click ok on the ASOM mount selector. Your mount and camera should now be connected. Press the button next to the telescope button (i think it looks like a circular arrow from memory) and the camera should start taking frames.
Select about 2 second or over exposures so you arnt trying to guide out bad seeing conditions then clinck on a star. A green box should now apear around the star. click on the PHD button next to the arrow button and PHD should start a calibration run. this tells PHD what orientation your camera is in and what your arcseconds per pixel (distance in space per pixel) are so it knows how to much to mover the mount to correct the guiding.

It all sounds easy enough but now comes the black majik part where you pull your hair out and have to sacrifice a few chickens lol.


Make sure you mount is polar aligned as perfectly as you can get it and the mount is balance really well with it being slightly east heavy. The less these mounts have to take direction the better, but you can get them to track really well if you have all your ducks lined up.

If you find that you mount is well polar aligned and PHD cant complete a calibration run. Press the stop button on PHD then press the brain button and change you calibrations step to a larger number. Mind is set to 2000 I think the default is 1000, it depends on you focal length.
I use to have my RA aggressiveness set to about 47 My hist at about 6, max dec and max ra will depend on a lot of different things you just need to have a play around with them until your graph looks reasonably flat.

Read this thread http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...show+phd+graph there is a lot of useful info on it written buy people alot more knowlegeble than me.

Also youtube EQMod there are a whole lot of video tutorials, on EQ mod.

Have fun but remember, no one ever said this hobby was easy lol.

Regards
Sandy

Last edited by White Rabbit; 29-04-2013 at 04:06 PM.
Reply With Quote